Question from a newbie

[jakecheechov]

I have a Lionel "O" gauge train set from the late 50's to early 60's that was originally given to my uncle as a teenager. When I was young he gave it to me and I played with it for a while before packing it away until recently so my 3 1/2 year old son can play with it.

Due to my sons love for trains it has renewed my passion for the hobby and we have both been very active of late learning as much as we can about model railroading. Trying to add to our collection, we have been bidding on "O" gauge parts and pieces on Ebay - I recently purchased a "Weaver" "O" - "O27" box car and it is quite a bit larger scale than the other box cars from my uncles train. The trucks are the same size, and it fits on the track well, It just looks disproportionate to the rest of the cars on the track. I am curious as to why? Is it just the difference between weaver and lionel? or it it because of a scale difference between "O" and "O 27" or is it something to do with newer "O" scale versus an older version

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thank you
Jake Cheechov

 

[Irongrave]

O scale is 1/44th scale or 1/44th the size of a real train. Packages branded as O are often close to this scaling. Lionel O-27 was for O gauge track, 1/44th real size with 27" radius curves creating a toy like appearance. The track is the same 3 or 2 rail however O and O-27 are different in sizing as the Weaver car you have is a scale model and the Lionel that you uncle had and now you is that its a toy, not a scale model.

Hope that helps a little bit

 

[UP2CSX]

The other problem with Lionel O-27 is that it was really only nominally O scale. In fact, O-27 engines and cars varied a lot compared to 1:44 or 1:48 scale. Lionel really made no attempt to maintain a consistent scale size. They just wanted everything to go around those sharp curves.